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Though they have only been a band for just over five years, Abandoncy has grown into their status as a staple in the heavy music scene of Kansas City, MO, and surrounding areas. Composed of Damian Fisher on guitar and vocals, Lincoln Peterson on bass and vocals, and Morgan Reed Greenwood on drums, Abandoncy doesn’t need strength in numbers and instead makes the most of what they’re given to create a result much larger-than-life.
Throughout their lifetime and a handful of releases, the trio has carefully fostered and perfected a style of music that is technical and beautiful but doesn’t shy away from any avant-garde, noisy, or punishing moments. While you’re able to discern sounds brought from noise rock of the 80s and 90s, post-hardcore of the 90s and early aughts, as well as multiple waves of emo and screamo, Abandoncy’s affinity for abstract structure, strange time, and dramatic pause gives them a style all their own. At its end, it is breathtaking, addictive, and harrowing.
The band pushes even further on their third full-length, ‘Assailable//Agonism. All six songs boil over with masterful instrumentation and crushing composition. Clocking in at just under 19 minutes, it feels like a brief but brutal haunting of your personal spaces. It is paranoid, blistering, and all-consuming, coated with the grime of drying riverbeds and dust storms. Through its juxtaposition of melodic and noisy elements, it has a presence that will draw in fans of all different styles of music.
Anxious drum work with the sonic treatment of a punch to the face, gritty basslines with the heft of gravity itself, and guitar lines akin to vertigo in that they are both mesmerizing and dizzying. It all accumulates into splinter-like music, stabbing at you unwittingly and embedding melody deep under the skin. It dares you to be intimidated.
Aided by drummer Morgan's recording captured in KCMO cornerstone Howdy, it possesses an undeniable dynamic sound. Assailable Agonism is barren and cavernous, waiting for the pin to drop, and other times raucous and claustrophobic, exploding before you.
Lead single “Scarlet Rot” is a jangly track that propels you forward. Frenetic, tremolo-picked riffs over deep bass progressions are accompanied by drums that sound like a caged bird trying to fly away. It is one of the more accessible songs on the record, but it still shows some sinister energy and teases more heavy moments seen in other tracks.
The second single, “Night Drive (feat. Eugene S. Robinson),” is the thunderous closer on the record and perfectly encapsulates everything you can experience in the other tracks. It builds to tear it all apart with a melodic beginning, devolving into a boisterous, monstrous second half. It is destructive of all in its path like a natural disaster, and it’s still the softest song on the record.
Assailable Agonism is out on September 20th via The Ghost Is Clear Records, Learning Curve Records, and Vina Records.
FFO: METZ, Gilla Band, Slint, Oxbow, Bambara, Model/Actriz
Click here to purchase a digital copy.
